Plea to drop anti-Islamic video from Google: Govt asked to reply

NEW DELHI: The Centre and the city police were today asked by the Delhi High Court to respond to a plea for direction to the government to ensure that Google India drop trailers of a controversial film, deemed offensive to Islam, from YouTube.

Issuing notice to the Centre and the ministries of Home Affairs, External Affairs, Minority Affairs, Corporate Affairs and Information and Broadcasting (I and B) along with the Delhi Police and Google India, a bench of Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw sought their response by January 23, 2013.

The court also asked the centre to inform it on the next date of hearing if any permanent solution could be found.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Maulana Mahmood Madani, general secretary of a religious body Jamiat Ulama-I- Hind (JUIH) seeking direction for complete removal of the film 'Innocence of Muslims' from various websites.

"Issue direction in the interest of public at large and in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents to permanently and completely remove or block or ban with immediate effect the exhibition, transmission or broadcast of the film 'Innocence of Muslims' or any contents or parts or its video or clippings or trailers or their similar versions with different titles from internet website YouTube....," the plea said.

Appearing for petitioner, senior advocate R S Suri argued that countries like Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan have already banned the Google and YouTube sites for their failure to check it.

"If government could not direct the search engine Google to remove the video "banning these sites may be the ultimate solution," the counsel added.